[Asterisk-Users] New Project - IP Phone Sources

[Stewart M. Ives]

Hello,

Background:  Old to UNIX & Linus, New to list. A techie Dad that supports
local k-8 school that my kids go to.

More background:  Recently the school wanted to put phones in all the
classrooms for teacher communications to/from the office.  Another Dad in the
telecom business spec'ed out a standard PBX with wiring, etc.  Needless to say
it was Expensive with a Captitol "E".  Anyway I started looking around at open
source and found Asterisk.  We currently have a complete switched network
within the school (jsut replaced all hubs with switches) and have multiple
PC's in each classroom as well as the front office.  We also run RH Linux for
our webserver, email server, file server, Websense server, and library
software server.

Question: If I just want to provide IP Telephony within the school and have no
outside connections to the local phone system I suspect I can install Asterisk
on a RH Linux server and plug in a bunch of IP Telephones on the network,
config it all and it will work.  The only cost to the school would be the IP
Telephones.  Correct??  I know it would involve a bit more configuration and
planning as I have stated but basically is the idea correct??

Question:  What phones or types of phones should I be looking at.  I suspect
there are new ones coming out every day.  I'm just interested in the most
basic phone to plug into the network.  Nothing fancy, basic, basic, basic.  I
also know I can use soft phones but do not want to go there as it makes just
another application we have to be responsible for on the desktop.

Many thanks in advance.

BTW, the school is:   www.sainttheresaschool.org

stew

>>
>> Stewart M. Ives
>> SofTEC USA
>> WebSite: www.softecusa.com